This undercover warranty investigation is a one-year follow-up from our series that investigated ASUS for motherboards incinerating AMD CPUs, at the end of which ASUS promised a number of improvements to its then-anti-consumer warranty processes. Spoiler alert: They’re still anti-consumer. We sent our ASUS ROG Ally Z1 Extreme in for warranty repair for issues with the left joystick (“drift”). The device also had a broken microSD card. ASUS then pointed to the world’s tiniest scratch and tried to charge us $200 for it under threat of sending back a disassembled device if we didn’t pay within 5 days. It felt like extortion. If you’re wondering whether ASUS is worth buying, the answer for anyone who values support should be “no.”
We have now tested ASUS’ motherboard and ROG Ally warranty and RMA processes. Both have been anti-consumer experiences.
I basically always tell people, if you’re buying Asus(in the U.S), youre essentially buying something new in box, but essentially considered used. Treat it as if its open box sale, because they will fight tooth and nail to attempt to deny your warranty.
Its a problem at various levels, primarily with the major Taiwanese Brick and Mortar companies. The sad part is how ubiquitous they are when it comes to the DIY portion of PC building.
I don’t have the time/money/bug up my ass to do it, but I feel like buying a few components, not using them, and sending them in for “repair” after a few months would be an interesting way to audit their warranty coverage.